European Studies Lunch Talk: Fundamental Rights in the EU: General Principles, the Charter, and the European Convention on Human Rights

Join us for a European Studies lunch talk with Visiting Researcher Luí sa Lourenço. Moderated by Daniela Caruso, Professor of Law at Boston University Law School.

Born as an international organization whose goal was to promote free trade, the European Union has grown into a complex entity, where fundamental rights protection is ever more pressing. With the Treaty of Lisbon, the Charter of Fundamental Rights acquired a new legal value, and the EU is due to access the system established by the Council of Europe and the Convention on Human Rights. The sources of rights proliferate, the competences become blurred and the mechanisms run the danger of overlapping. Which instrument is to be applied, who should adjudicate in which cases?

Luísa Lourenço is a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute, in Florence, where she also coordinates the Working Group 'Fundamental Rights in Europe'. She has an LLM in European Legal Studies by the College of Europe, Brugge, and was a trainee in the Portuguese cabinet of the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg.

Daniela Caruso has taught Contracts and European Union law at BU Law for many years. In her EU Law publications, she has focused on private law as a particularly effective tool for analyzing the political transformation of supranational institutions. She has also written on equality and federalism, on the implications of European integration for state-based social legislation, and on regional policies.

Open to BU community and others with research interest in the topic. Lunch provided. Kindly RSVP to edamrien@bu.edu.